TED speech Draft-3
Hello.
This blog is a record of Japanese artist, Hideki Tokushige, who are aiming to appear in TED conference overseas.
TED speech Draft-3
Art Can Change the Image of Death
（Beginning）
Three years ago, I received this email.
(The text is displayed on the back screen, and recorded Anna's voice plays)
Dear Hideki,
Your sculptures are beautiful.
I wonder, do you take bone donations?
I am looking for an artist to donate my bones to once I die, to be crafted into artworks.
I am not planning to die soon, but one never knows!
Warm regards, Anna
How mysterious it is!
She requested to use her bones for my artworks when she dies.
I didn't know this woman at that time.
Why did I receive such an unusual email?
I’ll talk about it.
（Main subject-1 Introduction of Bone Flowers）
I'm an artist.
These are my artworks.
Can you guess what these flowers are made of?
I make flowers using the original shape of bones.
I don't carve or cut.
I don't use wires or attachments.
I assemble to the same size as the actual flowers using only glue.
I'm looking for a common structure of nature between animals and plants.
This Narcissus is a combination of mouse's chin bones.
The Chinese Lantern Plant is made of mouse's heads, tails, spines,
and many ribs.
The Hydrangea petals are a combination of rat's scapulas.
Furs are reborn as leaves.
Then, when the flower is completed,
I take photos.
After that,
I take it to a place with a good view,
and respectfully bury it
into the ground.
People often ask me, "Why don't you keep them?"
But I feel beauty is ephemeral.
Flowers are beautiful because they wither.
So, I don't preserve them.
I finally keep only the photos.
That means I keep only memories.
My art values process more than the object.
I think this sense is also influenced by the culture of Japan, where I was born and raised.
We prefer beauty with faulty more than perfection.
I named the whole process “Honebana”.
“Ho-ne” means bones, “Ba-na” means flowers.
("Honebana ＝Bones Flowers" is displayed on the screen)
So far, I've already made seventeen kinds of flowers.
（Main subject-2 About the Frozen Rodents）
To make one whole flower, I use one to two hundred bones at most.
They're rodents like mice and rats.
Where do I get so many of them?
Well, they're not killed for my artworks.
They're food for pets.
Frozen mice and rats are born in the cages, raised, killed, and sold in pet shops as the food for big snakes and birds.
I felt they seemed to symbolize how we humans treat nature in modern society.
I dissect them one by one,
remove the furs, and clean their bones.
It takes several months to finish one flower.
This bone-taking process takes the most time.
I transform their lives into flowers as if they're reborn artistically.
（Main subject-3 Trigger, Experience of Raccoon Dog）
Why did I start using bones?
The trigger was this raccoon dog skull.
(I show the raccoon dog skull to the audience)
It was my first animal dissection.
After I graduated from photography school, I went back to my hometown.
I became a beekeeper's apprentice and looked after bees.
I have always loved animals, so naturally, I thought I would pursue my career as a beekeeper.
Just then I'd read a book “The School of Bones" written by a junior high school science teacher.
It teaches students how to make skeleton specimens and how interesting it is.
It tells raccoon dog is the most suitable animal for beginners.
Because of its medium size.
One early morning, I found a wild raccoon dog lying beside the mountain road.
It was probably hit by a car.
Blood had come out a little, but it didn't have a deep wound.
I took it home carefully.
Then, I laid it in the bathroom and opened the book “The School of Bones”.
It said, "First cut vertically on the belly".
However, I couldn't touch it directly, or even look straight into its eyes.
The worst thing was I couldn't distinguish if it was truly dead.
It was cold, breathless, and no pulse.
But, I doubted if it had just fainted.
If I cut it with the blade, it might regain consciousness, and run around my room with its bloody internal organs out.
Can you imagine?
It's a terrible nightmare, right?
If I wasn't hundred percent sure of its death, I couldn't cut it.
Despite the most basic, I couldn't even tell the distinction between life and death.
That fact brought me a heavy shock.
After three hours of hesitation, I finally gathered courage and pressed the blade on its belly.
Still, my hands trembled and didn't move forward.
When it was over, I was just badly exhausted .
I didn't remember how many hours it took.
(I show the raccoon skull again)
"You know nothing about life and death"
Its seemed to talk to me.
（Main subject-4 Bone and Flower Connect）
Few years later, I went to Tokyo to start my new career as a photographer.
But it wasn't easy.
As a forklift driver, I went back and forth between the factory and my home every day.
While struggling, I was constantly seeking “photos that only I could take”.
One cold winter dusk, I finally received a revelation to break through the depressing situation.
When I passed a busy intersection, it began to rain.
I entered a nearby cafe to shelter, and gazed out from the second-floor window.
The rain got stronger, and the asphalt got wetter and darker.
Cars came and went, and tail lights reflected in the rain.
People walked fast.
At the intersection, some umbrellas opened.
The scenery looked like lotus flowers blooming on the surface of the water.
At that moment a vision of “making flowers out of bones” came down from heaven.
Aha! It's a flower!
Flower is a symbol of beauty and life for all cultures and religions.
The act of putting flowers on graves is universal, beyond race.
Also, lotus in the mud is known as a holy one in the Orient.
I immediately went home and started looking for a way.
After much trial and error, I finally got my first work, Lotus,
in bloom.
Then I continued this art for more than ten years.
During that time, the raccoon dog was saying to me, “You know nothing about life and death”.
I feel Honebana was my answers to it.
Honebana combines conflicting elements.
Life and death, animals and plants, beauty and ugliness, colors and monochrome, natural and artificial, and creation and destruction.
I believe the important role of the artist is to consider the divided values and reconnect them fundamentally.
（Conclusion About Anna's Email Again）
This speech is finally coming to a close.
Let's get back from the beginning.
Anna who sent me that email is an English writer and she published two books.
She possesses a donor card and wants to donate not only her blood and organs but also bones.
We began to exchange many ideas about our past, the power of imagination, and our common ground.
After that, I began to seriously consider her offer.
Also, I wanna extend this adventurous attempt to others.
"You bloom as the art"
("You bloom as the art" is displayed on the screen)
That's the next “Honebana Project” - a new face of a funeral and new art.
I started a collaborative research with the Japanese optical instrument manufacturer.
We're aiming to develop a special 3D printer, that uses the powder of real human bones after cremation.
There's no such device in the world yet.
With this device, we can produce beautiful flowers with delicate and thin details like a fancy lace made of bone ashes.
It can also be colored and firmness can be adjusted too.
Anna hopes to become a poppy flower.
She said, it isn't for the association with fallen soldiers, but for its silky combination of resilience and fragility.
Generally, modern society tends to portray death as something negative.
Death is considered a taboo and is handled in hospitals far away from everyday life.
The form of funerals remains shaped by old traditions and religions.
Strict conventions are given priority over our personality.
But, some people would say "I 'm open to death, no taboo".
Also, please try to consider this.
In your funeral, you're the main character.
It's your life's culmination.
Have you ever deeply thought about designing it in the same way as you decide on your hairstyle every morning?
How about the shirt you wear on a date?
Or the lighting for your bedroom?
People are not all standard products.
Every life is different.
If so, shouldn't there be as many designs of funeral as there’re lives?
I want to create a new idea of death by using art.
More beautiful, more positive, and be more true to yourself.
I propose a new design that reflects our lives in a form of self-expression.
Art can change the image of death.
I learned it from that raccoon dog and frozen mice and rats.
And, now from here, the next new adventure begins.
I'm very grateful to be able to share this memorable first step with you.
Let's create a new way of death for each person, together.
Finally, I'll finish this speech with the latest idea of Anna's poppy design.
I connected Honebana and honeybees.
It was natural to me since I wanted to be a beekeeper.
This design mediates between life and death, like a honeybee mediates between flowers.
I'll put pollen in the poppy made of her bones.
The petals will be colored and will smell like flowers.
From Anna's poppy, bees will carry pollen.
Death is not a discontinuity here.
She will become a part of the natural process of connecting lives.
Thank you.
How was it?
I would be encouraged if you give me your thoughts, advice.
Thank you for reading.
